A Memorable Memorial Day!

For over 35 years now, we’ve carried on a family tradition of getting together with all of our Carling relatives on Memorial Day to celebrate the life of our wonderful grandparents…and celebrate the posterity that they’ve left behind! For all of us cousins, it used to be a day that we greatly looked forward to so that we could share our yearbooks with each other and just see and spend time together...which is something we rarely got to do! It was truly a day we looked forward to!

The tradition started back in 1975, the year after our grandma, Clara Pearl Astle Carling died, but even before that, we would get together at grandma’s house after we’d all go to visit grandpa’s grave in Providence. Then the year after she died, that family gathering shifted to our house in Logan. It seemed the likely thing to do so that we could continue the tradition that she’d started and so that we’d still be able to spend time with our relatives.

Each year on Memorial Day, everyone would come from as far away as Salt Lake and sometimes even Arizona, to leave flowers at the graves, and then we’d all meet at our house for a barbecue. All the aunts would prepare a salad and a dessert to share with everyone and they all brought their own meat, which was usually hamburgers, to cook on the grill. My dad only had one grill at the time and with 8 brothers and sisters and countless cousins, there were a lot of hamburgers that needed to be cooked…so our family usually waited and ate last! We felt a little deprived always having to go last, but we soon figured that we could eat our meal in two courses. The first course would be all of the yummy salads and the second would be the hamburgers. That way we could still sit and “eat” with our cousins until our hamburgers were done. It was the best of both worlds!

My cousin Melanie and me - we got mistaken for each other several times this year. Do we look that much alike?

For years, Memorial Day was one of my favorite holidays because I absolutely loved being able to spend time with my cousins that I rarely got to spend time with otherwise. With almost 50 cousins, we all had someone that was near our age, so it was truly a fun time for all of us. However, as the years have gone by and we’ve all gotten older and started families of our own, the Memorial Day gathering has become smaller and smaller. At one point we even determined that every other year we’d consider it our official Carling Family Reunion, but I’m not even sure that has stuck.

Ray, Dad, Lola, Lee, Blaine - missing Ivan, Darrell, Eva and Linda (who died a few years ago)

The Carling Brothers and Sisters with their spouses
(l to r: Beverly, Ray, mom, dad, Kathy, Lee, David, Faye, Blaine, Lola, Dee)

Now, it seems like the aunts and uncles have all remained faithful and continue to come every year (with the exception of a few of them here and there), but the only other ones that have remained faithful is our family. It seems like we get to see different cousins each year even though it’s usually not the same ones from year to year, so it’s always exciting just to go and see who will show up. On the other hand, knowing that most of my cousins probably won’t be there, I now go to the party knowing that if no one else shows up, at least I’ll get to see all of my brothers and sisters…and that’s good enough for me!

This year, I couldn’t even talk my husband into going with us. I didn’t used to have that problem, but he knows how much I enjoy seeing everyone (and how long I like to stay), so he usually finds other things that he “has” to do on that day to prevent him from coming. Either that or we drive separate cars so I can stay as long as I’d like! This year, he and Jon had conveniently made plans to go car shopping on Memorial Day to see if they could find something to replace Jon’s old Ford Taurus that was still barely running. As much as I love them to come with me, I knew we’d all be happier if we did our own thing.

Guess who showed up right in the middle of our family party? Rod and Jon! They had apparently come to Logan to look at a car and decided to just stop by…and to get some food! I didn’t care what their reason was, I was just glad they came! Overall, we all had a wonderful day. The boys and I got to visit as long as we wanted (which was almost until 9:00!), Rod got to come to the party and just eat and leave (which is what he prefers) and Jon got himself a cute new little car! What more could we ask for?